Wanted 2 Has ‘Got a Great Twist’

After years in development hell, director Timur Bekmambetov says he finally knows what the super-powered assassin sequel is about.

There's a really good chance that you're a fan of Timur Bekmambetov's Wanted, a 2008 adaptation of the comic book series by Mark Millar (Kick-Ass) and J.G. Jones (Final Crisis) that managed to ignore about 85% of the original story and rake in over $341 million internationally in the process. Four years later, the story of a world run by supervillains (that was somehow turned into a movie about heroic assassins who bathe in milk and obsess over threadcounts) has yet to produce a sequel, despite repeated attempts by screenwriters like Evan Spiliotopoulos and Derek Haas & Michael Brandt. What was the hold up? Maybe they just didn't know what the story was about. But Timur Bekmambetov does. He figured it out three weeks ago.

"An unbelievable thing happened three weeks ago," the director told IndieWire in an interview while promoting his latest film, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter."[…] Three weeks ago I came up with a great idea and I pitched this idea and everybody fell in love with it. And now I think we're on track. Right now the writer is working on the script, and it will be shocking."

Bekmambetov confirms that Wanted 2 will be a continuation of the first film's storyline, and will once again feature Wesley Gibson, originally played by James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class). But if you're waiting for some of your other favorite characters to return to the big screen, you're probably out of luck. "Other people are dead, you know, we can't bring them back. The story is the same character, same mythology, but it's got a great twist."

It's great that Wanted 2, assuming you're interested in such a thing, has a new lease on life, but with a script yet to be written and Bekmambetov busy on projects like a new take on Moby Dick, it might be a very long time before it goes into production. So don't get too excited just yet.

CraveOnline will be back with more Wanted 2 news after we get Mr. Rictus away from the goats.